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3.25.2013

BEST ACTIVITY EVER

I often think Johnnie is bored at home. At her Gramma's house, there are all sorts of age-appropriate toys and books to occupy her time -- not to mention playmates her age to dance and giggle with all day long. That's one of the many perks of having a grandmother who babysits kids in her home. At our house, the options are much more limited. By choice, we haven't collected many toys since we don't spend many playtime hours at home. It only makes sense that eventually, what options we do have will get a little played out. Lately I've been putting more thought into new activities and toys we can add to the mix. I don't want to spend a lot while accumulating tons of things she'll quickly outgrow, so the creative juices have been flowing over here.

Enter the fascinating world of dried beans. Since Ez and I teach the preschool Sunday School class at our church, we often have random stuff lying around like pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks and -- you guessed it -- giant bags of dried beans. (You know, for making musical instruments and whatnot...) One evening after work last week, I dumped some of the beans in a basket, gave her a firm lecture on never ever ever putting them in her mouth, and handed her some bowls and spoons to dig around with. This is obviously not an earth-shattering original idea, but we played in that basket together for a solid hour and a half -- scooping, pouring, dumping, stirring -- and she cried when it was time to go to bed because she wasn't ready to quit. Success!

(Note: She has never been one to put things in her mouth, but obviously this is not an activity that I would ever let her do with my back turned even for a second. Even when she just pretended to taste some bean soup we were stirring in her bowl, I was all over her. So this is basically a 110% supervised activity.)

A few days later her interest is starting to wane a bit, but I'm pretty thrilled anyway. For an investment of zero dollars, she got to try something new and work on her manual dexterity at the same time -- and we had several evenings of a happily occupied kid. In a few weeks I'll get them out again and see if her interest piques again. Until then, I'm having fun trying to think of new free-or-almost-free adventures we can have to keep her engaged during those relatively short but precious hours we're just hanging around at home.

Next up: homemade Play-Doh. This picture is several weeks old now, but this is basically the face she made when I told her. Kid loves her some Play-Doh.

Parenting is fun. And if you have any fun toddler activity recommendations, please let me know!

12 comments:

Love her face! We've been trying some new activities with Henry, now that he can sort of participate. One that he loved was putting paint in ziploc bags and taping them to the glass door. It was zero mess and he loved playing and "writing letters" with my help.

I grew up in a family without a lot of money and consequently most of our toys were conjured up using household things. My barbie house? Old moving boxes stacked three high and decorated with our own drawings, etc. I think it's awesome that you're fostering imaginative play and creativity. Kids truly don't need a lot!

At my grandparents' house (where I hung out every day while my parents worked), my favorite activities were drawing on the sidewalk with emptied squirt bottles filled with water, playing school with my grandfather and a chalkboard, and building with basic Legos. My grandma kept a junk drawer for me in her kitchen, which she filled with random things like empty pill bottles, random address labels and stickers she got in the mail, cardboard tubes, tennis ball cans, etc. I loved digging around in that drawer and playing with whatever I found. She didn't even freak out when I put zebra stickers on it -- which are still there to this day. It definitely aided in creativity.

Play is in the mind, more than body. A cardboard box with a window in it, is worth a lot. My kids had a few things, but played more with what they could make. Scrap wood pieces became whatever they needed. Tupperware pieces were boats, hats and whatever. I believe in the importance of "Instruction as play". Play with her making cookies. (Yes, at this age) Play with her cleaning the house. Play with her folding clothes and working with tools, what-not.

Those are things she often prefers to do anyway. Literally, one of her favorite things is getting to push the start button on the washing machine. Unfortunately, that is a fairly short-lived activity so I have to follow it up with more things like it.

I miss my little baby already, but my toddler is fun too. You've got grandkids, so you are getting to relive some of this stuff, right?

You might want to mix beans in 2 colors and get here to sort them out in 2 separate dishes. Also, you can get 8 jars (2 sets of 4) that have been lined up the paper inside so they are not transparent. So lets say 4 white jars and 4 black jars and make holes in the lids (or just cover it with fabric. Then you put sets of strong smeling spices inside (cloves, cinnamon, cordamom or other stuff that smell) and the have to match by smell withOut looking. Cloves in white jar and cloves in black jar and so on. There is a book called "how to rase an amazing child the Montessori way" it's full of activities like that for todllers. You should check it from the library and photocopy some pages. Totally worth it.

What great ideas! I stumbled upon a couple Montessori blogs lately while looking for new activities, and I really like the overall Montessori method. (Some parents go a little overboard, in my opinion, but I don't think I'm capable of that kind of dedication...) I will definitely look for that book! I really appreciate the recommendation.

The adults I know that were raised with Montessori method are the MOST creative, resourceful and capable people I know, so long before I had a kid I knew that's going to be my way of raising my children. It can be very involved, but it doesn't have to. We are trying to do as much as we can, but by no means all of it. Your daughter is in perfect age group to start Montessori activities, and the book I mentioned is super easy to read, you'll have tons of (free) ideas in one afternoon.Also, you should check out this blog, this woman blows my mind:http://www.aneverydaystory.com/Sorry for the "anonymous" it doesn't let me post without the website all of the sudden..Olga